A “Big Tent” Issue

Abstract

This, our team's penultimate issue of the Journal of Global Security Studies, demonstrates the big tent we hoped for from the journal's start. It is big in both its demonstration of our growing backlog (we are trying to pack in as much as we can to give our successors a little more editing space) and in its showcasing of our substantive, methodological, and theoretical diversity. We believe the backlog and the different article orientations together reflect the enthusiasm with which security scholars of different stripes are engaging on JoGSS pages. Our first article, by Ronald Mitchell and Charli Carpenter, argues that a norms-based discourse may spearhead faster, more effective climate action. Pulling from recent successes in other arenas, they outline five strategies through which a norms focus could take hold in climate change discussions and how these could propel the responses this security threat requires. Next, Anette Stimmer documents the various ways pop cultural references can affect weapons procurement debates and how the meaning of references can shift over time. Specifically, she traces how the “Star Wars” label was first used by opponents of the Strategic Defense Initiative and seen as a disabling frame, but, as its use spread among the public, became a more neutral descriptive shorthand.